A graphical take on geoeconomic issues, with links to the news and expert commentary.

Greece’s 2009 budget deficit was 13.6% of GDP. The primary deficit – the balance before interest – was 8.5% of GDP. The main difference between the total deficit and the primary deficit is the ‘snowball effect,’ or the effect through time of low growth and high interest rates on the debt to GDP ratio. As shown in the figure above, the snowball effect replaces the primary deficit as the principal driver of Greece’s spiraling debt ratio in 2010 and 2011. New loans from the IMF and European Union may avert default in the short term, but do not change this debt dynamic. According to the European Commission, which optimistically assumes that Greece achieves 1.2% GDP growth and pays an average interest rate of 4.7% in 2011, Greece needs to achieve a primary surplus of nearly 5% of GDP in order to stop the upward march of indebtedness. This is a massive mountain for Greece to climb to avoid default. But consider also that once Greece achieves a primary surplus of any size it actually has an enormous incentive to default, as it can then wipe out huge amounts of accumulated debts without any longer needing the financial markets to fund current expenditures. In short, a Greek default is almost certainly a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if.’ Read more »

Before the creation of the euro, European governments borrowed at very different rates. In July 1995, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain all had to pay at least 4% more than Germany on their borrowings. This spread was in large part driven by differences in the market’s inflation expectations. As the market became increasingly confident that these countries would join the euro, this spread narrowed. As shown in the chart, by the time the various national currencies were pegged to the euro the spread was nearly gone. During the second half of 2008 the spread returned. This time, the demand for higher returns does not reflect a fear of higher inflation, but rather the view that these countries are much more likely than Germany to default. Read more »